The Strain: The Complete First Season

You will want to binge watch this show. It is so entertaining. There are a few scenes that are not kid friendly so watch out. It is scary but with a story line. Overall i enjoyed every minute.

What can I say? - I've been a vampire aficionado since reading the all-time classic, DRACULA, as a child. It remains one of my Top Ten favorite novels and I read it once every two or three years. Nothing compares, really; not all the knock-off vampire novels and films (ESPECIALLY those with sparkly vampires) - nothing. Well, nothing, with the exceptions of SALEM'S LOT, INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE, THE WORLD ON BLOOD, THE LIVING ONE, TAP TAP, and the trilogy that begins with THE STRAIN. None of these top the Stoker, but they come damn close. I like my vampires vicious, violent, stomach-churning, and SCARY, and in all of these, they are. When THE STRAIN was released in novel form, followed a year later by the second book of the trilogy and a year after that by the third, I could easily describe my reading experience thusly: I sucked these novels dry, as if the paragraphs, sentences, words, and individual letters were disappearing from the pages and into my brain as I read. When I learned that del Toro planned to film them himself, my anticipation for a film version - theatrical or television mini-series - went a little bit over the full moon, let's say. More recently, when I learned that he was doing the first novel as a full series, I thought it would be wise for a close friend or relative to commit me to an institution because I found myself turning into Stoker's character of Renfield, so impatient for the arrival of his Master. At last the evening came, the premiere of Episode 1 of THE STRAIN on FX. And I waited SO patiently for the evening after that, when I thought I'd be able to watch it on the network site. Frustration! To see it there, I had to provide a cable provider. ARGHHH.I refuse to pay for cable television, prefering instead to find what I'm interested in watching on network sites, or Netflix, or here on Amazon Instant Video with Prime. I raced here immediately after hurling expletives at FX, and I almost cried with joy - Amazon, you had it available already! Bless you. At $1.99 per episode. BLESS YOU! I purchased "Night Zero" one billisecond later.I watched it, then watched it again the next evening. I may watch it again THIS evening when I finish my review. It is THAT good.For one thing, with some well-orchestrated condensations, it follows the novel almost perfectly, which is a good thing, a very good thing, indeed. The opening hook, for example - the dead jumbo jet on the taxiway at JFK in New York, with no lights, no engines, no sound, no communication from the crew, no phone calls from the passengers, and no view into the interior because all the window shades have been closed... How much more curious can we feel to find out WHAT'S HAPPENED INSIDE THAT PLANE? Talk about suspense. And talk about the slow build of small pieces of answers adding to small pieces of answers until you begin to get the idea... This is vampire horror at its finest, but I shouldn't say more at the risk of spoiling it for you if you haven't read the trilogy. I will say, however, that the first appearance of the Master is terrifying in its surprise, fast pace, brutality, gore, and pure cinema.As for the film itself, and judging by only the first episode, del Toro is creating a masterpiece of television horror. As in his major films, his direction is flawless. And the cast is superb! They're all so believable, perhaps because the entire story is so - no other word - believable. It's NOW. It's post-9/11 New York. It's filled with working class characters trying to go about their everyday lives despite the events surrounding them. It's...classic. Del Toro and his co-author for the novels, Chuck Hogan, have given dignity back to Dracula. He's no longer sparkly and tweeny-romantic - he BITES again! With a new kind of fang.I can't wait to watch the series progress, and I can only hope it's successful enough that del Toro is able to film the next two books, as well. And I urge all fangs...I mean, FANS of all things vampiric to WATCH...THE STRAIN. Fans of the trilogy can't possibly be disappointed, and those unfamiliar with it will realize almost instantly that they've stumbled upon a new vampire "top THIS!"

Well, I just finished episode 1.Mostly, what I gasped at over and over again in horror was what the CDC people were doing. Our protagonists.Now, I'm no medical expert, but you probably shouldn't be running your bare hands over cargo that you suspect could be the source of a contagion with a confirmed 98-99% kill rate. You probably shouldn't be running around the plane in spacesuits, but then have dozens of people running around all the things FROM THE PLANE in street clothes. You probably shouldn't shine your UV flashlight around the cargo hold, confirm biological contamination everywhere, then give orders to unload the cargo bay!If you are inspecting a body under bright UV light, so bright that you need welding goggles, you probably shouldn't pull them off and look around! Nor should you be cutting into bodies with nothing but gloves and a splash guard when inspecting bodies killed by a contagion with a confirmed 98-99% kill rate! Did the writers hand the coroner a copy of the script so he'd know it wasn't a bacteria or virus?Now, these COULD be attempts at realism. Who can forget Clipboard Guy? (just do an image search for "ebola clipboard" you'll see - that REALLY HAPPENED with a real contagion with an approximate 80% kill rate - thanks, CDC!)Also, there appears to be a mind-bogglingly rich, long-scheming corporation/secret society that wants to get a box into Manhattan. The events of the show appear to hinge on whether this happens.This super rich long-scheming organization, when it comes time to do the one thing all their plans depend on, gives the job to an untrustworthy and reluctant street thug who they hand a card to with no explanation of what to do with it or with whom - at the crucial moment, he whips it out in desperation. We know he doesn't know what to do with it because he shows it to the wrong person.The RIGHT guy on the other end clearly has NO IDEA what is happening, hasn't been told what to look for. He gives the card a disbelieving and surprised triple-take and then says ok go through - what if the security guard had crumpled up the card and thrown it on the ground? What if the thug had freaked out 5 seconds sooner? What if the guy who needed to see the card was needed elsewhere? How could the evil genius idiots know there'd be a security check of vans and that this one guy would be put in charge of it and would personally inspect their vehicle out of hundreds?You'd think they'd have hired a guy for the van with a resume like "Special Forces: Afghanistan, Diplomatic security: Iraq, wetwork teams: Latin America, Corporate Security: Evil Organization" A professional that gets stuff done, has a track record of following orders successfully and unscrupulously.These Evil Dimwits stand at the top of a skyscraper talking about how all their dreams are about to come true, having sent a totally undependable, volatile, hostile thug out with no instructions on how to make it happen - with him depending on somehow linking up with another man he doesn't know about who appears to have also received no instructions and will need to nevertheless show up at the right place at the right time and guess what to do! Everything they are gloating about from the top of their tower depends on these two uninformed nitwits! By careful design!You get the feeling, when the man in the suit says "It's all arranged" of something like in Austin Powers, where Dr Evil says "I'm just going to put him in an easily escapable and overly elaborate deathtrap and assume everything went according to plan!"Like, maybe they think it's SPORTING to send the box by these methods with a 99% chance of failure?The dialogue is badly written and badly acted - as if the actors were reading the parts for the first time as they were being filmed, with no chance to consider the context of any particular line. So the acting is sort of strong, in an "I'm going to confidently act in a general sort of way because gosh darn it I'm a professional and I haven't had a read-through" while often having a jarring tone or emphasis.It makes me value Patrick Stewart as an actor all over again - all those schlocky scripts churned out for Next Generation with horrible dialogue. It was priceless to see him - by use of emphasis, rhythm, tone, posture, gesture, etc, transform awful dialogue into ok dialogue.All of the problems make the show oddly entertaining and compelling. Maybe not quite enough. I can definitely see why people would say it sucks. I haven't decided yet if I hate it or not. If only they'd make it MORE weird and give it some over-the-top William Shatner type acting, you'd have an absolute gem!I confess, I already want all the main characters to die and feel no sympathy for them. The writers have clearly communicated that I am SUPPOSED to like them without actually compelling me to do so. As in world war Z - Please like Brad Pitt. Cmon. Do it. He smiles, he makes pancakes, he HAS CHILDREN. CHILDREN!!!!!I would highly recommend Del Toro's earlier stuff like Devil's Backbone, Pan's Labyrinth, the Hellboy movies especially Hellboy 2... but his involvement in stinkers like the Hobbit movies suggest that in the future, one must exercise some caution rather than taking his name on faith like a brand name.

It's a great series, proper horror film-like. It shows the start of the collapse of New York under a vampire scourge (animalistic hive-minded monsters, not flitty shiny romantic wannabes), and is gorey all through, think the Walking Dead/Fear the walking dead early episodes.Sadly this is the only one of the 4 series of the Strain which has been released in the UK in region 2 DVD format, so to keep following the series beware, either you'll need to get an italian import (series 2 only) or pay a lot extra for a region 1 import of series 2-4, or pay to stream- the biggest scam where you pay dvd boxset price for zero permanent product.

The Strain is a series I want their like. The depictions of the creatures are great, but the series suffers from weak writing and poor acting, which is a pity as I noticed two of the writers previously wrote for Star Trek DS9 and Battlestar Galactica, two of my favourite series ever.

A brilliant vampire show with some stand-out episodes particularly episode 7, Creatures Of The Night. The pilot is more like a movie and it just keeps getting better and better.All the characters are interesting and the gore is plentiful. Waiting patiently for the release of season 2.

Myself and my brother really enjoyed this talk about binge watching this program can't wait to check out season 2

Brilliant. No issues with product or delivery. Loved the series, just frustrated at being unable to get the right region for series 2 3 & 4